Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal of Spain and Roger Federer of Switzerland hug at the net, after Nadal won their men's singles semi-final match at the Australian Open 2014 tennis tournament in Melbourne Reuters

Former world's no.1 Roger Federer finally spoke about the real score between him and current top-rank netter Rafael Nadal, stressing that they are not the best of friends.

The 32-year old Federer is coming off his first tournament victory of the year after beating Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych in three sets 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the championship of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Open.

Before he punched his spot in the final, Federer came up with a masterful performance against another former world's no.1 Novak Djokovic in three sets. The Swiss Maestro, who had a disastrous campaign in 2013, called the victory against the six-time Grand Slam champion as a big step moving forward.

"It's all happening. Beating Novak on the hard courts here in Dubai is tough. Clearly it's not best of five, clearly not the finals of some whatever tournament, but this is a big step in the right direction. It gives me a lot of confidence. Physically, I'm doing well. We'll have to see how I handle travelling all the way to Indian Wells," Federer said in an interview with Tennis Earth.

The going gets tougher in the coming weeks when Federer plays in the Indian Wells and Miami Masters, a tournament filled with top-tier players - including Djokovic, Andy Murray and arch rival Rafael Nadal.

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Federer has engaged in numerous epic matches with Nadal throughout his career, but he nevertheless said that everything is fine between him and the Mallorcan netter. He said they are not close as friends, but he's intrigued on what their 'friendship' would look like after their ATP career.

"We're almost too nice to each other sometimes, I don't want to say today's players are too soft, but it's good when players go after each other a bit. I'm not sure how close we are as friends. I'll be interested how much we'll stay in touch once everything is said and done and we're off the circuit. We're not going to dinner, if you know what I mean. I don't know how it was in Connors's era," said Federer.